A robot is located on the cell with a red arrow, facing in the direction the arrow points. The robot is programmed to move forward until it reaches a wall (the perimeter of the puzzle or a black cell) or a cell it has already visited. At this point, the robot will attempt to turn 90 degrees to the right and continue moving forward again; if a wall or a cell that has already been visited it to its right, the robot will attempt to turn left instead. The robot will stop when it can no longer move to a cell it hasn't already visited. Shade in some of the cells black such that the robot will visit every white cell in the grid, and stop on a dot. Cells containing dots or arrows may not be black; additionally, the robot must exit a cell with an arrow (including the cell it starts on) in the direction the arrow indicates. (See here for an illustrated example.)

A robot is located on the cell with a red arrow, facing in the direction the arrow points. The robot is programmed to move forward until it reaches a wall (the perimeter of the puzzle or a black cell) or a cell it has already visited. At this point, the robot will attempt to turn 90 degrees to the right and continue moving forward again; if a wall or a cell that has already been visited it to its right, the robot will attempt to turn left instead. The robot will stop when it can no longer move to a cell it hasn't already visited. Shade in some of the cells black such that the robot will visit every white cell in the grid, and stop on a dot. Cells containing dots or arrows may not be black; additionally, the robot must exit a cell with an arrow (including the cell it starts on) in the direction the arrow indicates. (See here for an illustrated example.)

This concept was invented by MellowMelon. I feel very honored to have the privilege of working my monogram into a puzzle genre he created. :)

I have yet again kept up the mentally exhausting tradition of posting a 31x45 puzzle every 25th puzzle. I feel very, very spent. I hope you're happy, readers!

I would like to thank the people, dogs, and God who have kept my blog and me alive. I can't think of much else to say, so here's a video I found while trying to find an interesting link related to the number 450.

Ten ships (as indicated below the grid: one four-cell ship, two three-cell ships, three two-cell ships, and four one-cell ships) are hidden in the grid. The ships may be rotated from the orientations shown, but may not overlap or occupy cells which share a corner or an edge. A number to the right of a row or below a column indicates how many cells in that row or column are occupied by ships. Additionally, some segments of the ships are shown within the grid, and cells with wavy lines are "water" cells which cannot contain ships. Find the ships.

This puzzle marks the end of my series of seventeen 17x17 puzzles! I hope you, dear reader, have enjoyed solving these puzzles as much as I've enjoyed forcing myself to make them. Stay tuned tomorrow for a new Monday Mutant, and be on the lookout for puzzle 450, as well.

Today is also International Talk Like a Pirate Day, although that has no relevance to the puzzle below.

I was one of the 1% of American children who wasn't at all wild about Pokémon when it made its American debut in 1998. However, years later, I discovered Pokémon Puzzle League, a remake of the Super Nintendo game Tetris Attack, of which I was (and still am) a big fan. Merely expecting to tolerate the theme, I somehow ended up falling in love with the Pokémon franchise. Now I'm making puzzles like this one, and the one below. Wow.

Thirty ships (as indicated below the grid: three four-cell ships, six three-cell ships, nine two-cell ships, and twelve one-cell ships) are hidden in the grid. The ships may be rotated from the orientations shown, but may not overlap or occupy cells which share a corner or an edge. A number to the right of a row or below a column indicates how many cells in that row or column are occupied by ships. Additionally, some segments of the ships are shown within the grid, and cells with wavy lines are "water" cells which cannot contain ships. Find the ships.Now with 200% more ships and 189% more grid! Also, this doesn't count as part of my series of seventeen 17x17 puzzles.

Shade in some cells black such that the black cells are all connected to each other through their edges, and no 2x2 cell area within the grid contains all black cells. Numbers to the left of a row represent the groups of consecutive black cells which are in that row. For example, a clue of "3" means the row has three consecutive black cells, and a clue of "3 1" means that the row has a group of three consecutive black cells followed by a single black cell, separated by at least one white cell. In the same fashion, numbers above a column represent the groups of consecutive white cells which are in that column. A question mark (?) represents a group of consecutive black or white cells whose size is unknown; an asterisk (*) represents any number of unknown groups of black or white cells, including none at all.Cross the Streams is back with a vengeance!

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Who's the author?

Grant Fikes has been writing logic puzzles in an amateur capacity since 2005, and in a professional capacity since 2013. He serves as the second-most prolific contributor to the blog on Grandmaster Puzzles, behind only Thomas Snyder; his works have also appeared in Akil Oyunlari, in Sudoku Xtra, the United States Puzzle Competition (2012-2014), and in a smartphone app. Grant has also created Kakuro puzzles for Kakuro Conquest (the puzzles haven't appeared yet, for whatever reason). As a budding word puzzle constructor, Grant's puzzles have appeared in the short-lived Will Shortz's Wordplay, in GAMES World of Puzzles, and in the smartphone app Bonza, and his creation Pent Words has won an award from Kadon Enterprises; as an occasional board gamer, his game Battle of LITS has been published by nestorgames and Lyris Laser Studios and is playable on BoardGameArena. On the Internet, Grant has adopted the persona of a purple and cyan fox/badger hybrid.

PLEASE DO:* commission me! I make good puzzles!* become my patron on Patreon! You'll get early access to my word puzzles!* print these puzzles out to solve them on paper* copy and paste these puzzles into your preferred image editor, and solve them there* e-mail me (glmathgrant@gmail.com; I can nudge you towards a solution if you're stuck, or interact with you in other ways)* post non-spoiler comments directly on the blog (i.e., "I like what you did with the 3's", "The logic in the upper left corner was astounding")* share these puzzles with friends and link to this blog

PLEASE DON'T:* spoil the solution in the comments section for all others to see* post completely irrelevant comments (including comments consisting completely of punctuation)* claim these puzzles as your own* make money off of these puzzles without my permission

What's that font?

Since Wordy Wednesday 72, all puzzles on this blog use the royalty-free Tinos font. Hooray for free stuff!

Who made those images?

The purple and cyan mascot on this page is my fox/badger fursona Grant Badger Fox. The blog's banner was made by PunkJax, the image of Grant holding a tip jar was made by Marquis2007, and the "Certified Puzzlemaster" badge was made by Mary Mouse.